Corporate social responsibility:
a psychosocial multidimensional
construct
Gianvito D’Aprile and Terri Mannarini
Department of Education, Universita
`
del Salento, Lecce, Italy
Abstract
Purpose – Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is conceptualized as the construct describing the
relationship between companies and society. Although scholars reached an agreement about the
linkages between CSR in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and psychosocial issues – social
identity, organizational culture and commitment – it is still a problematic issue how CSR should be
defined and how companies could behave as socially responsible. The authors hypothesize that
psychosocial processes impact the activation of CSR. Within a psychological perspective, the purpose
of this paper is to explore CSR definitions and CSR psychosocial dimensions.
Design/methodology/approach – According to an emic perspective oriented at in-depth
comprehension of phenomena, the authors adopted the grounded theory methodology to collect,
analyze and discuss the data. In total, 14 entrepreneurs and 12 employees of Italian-Apulian SMEs
were interviewed on three thematic areas: organizational culture; sense of community; and CSR.
Interviews were transcribed and analyzed through qualitative content analysis.
Findings – Results showed that: CSR definitions were continuously mediated by participants’
organizational culture; and perspective taking, care taking and sustainable practices emerged as the
salient CSR psychosocial components, correspondent to its cognitive, affective and behavioral
dimensions.
Practical implications – The paper argues that CSR psychosocial components could be the
strategic variables to develop and to manage CSR in organizations.
Originality/value – CSR is re-conceptualized as a psychosocial multidimensional construct,
explaining its dynamic activation in organizations. The authors suggest that the cognitive and
affective dimensions are antecedent to the behavioral dimension. Thus, the authors are developing a
CSR psychosocial scale to study the linkages among these dimensions and other variables through
quantitative analysis method.
Keywords Italy, Small to medium-sized enterprises, Organizational culture,
Corporate social responsibility, Social identity, Qualitative methodology, Content analysis
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Nowadays, companies are facing important challenges due to the economic crisis. On a
wide range of issues, they are encouraged to behave in a manner that is sustainable
and socially responsible (Bansal, 2005; Engle, 2006; Welford and Frost, 2006).
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is considered a strategic, key behavior for
companies’ economic, social and environmental development. To overcome critical
challenges, companies have to rethink their role in society and consider themselves as
socio-economic agents contributing to the human, civic and social progress of the
community as a whole. Consequently, both economic and socio-ethical dimensions
seem to be strictly interrelated, orienting small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
toward sustainable development (Commission of the European Communities, 2001).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/2041-2568.htm
JGR
3,1
48
Journal of Global Responsibility
Vol. 3 No. 1, 2012
pp. 48-65
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2041-2568
DOI 10.1108/20412561211219283